Crytek and EA respond to the Crysis 2 leak

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On Friday evening a 9.22GB file thought to be a build of Crysis 2 started appearing on file-sharing networks. It turned out to be a late developer build of the game including the full single-player campaign, multiplayer, and the master key file used for activation. Basically, the whole game but in some sort of beta form.

Crytek and publisher EA have now responded to the leak of the game via the official EA Crysis 2 blog. In a short post they state:

Crytek has been alerted that an early incomplete, unfinished build of Crysis 2 has appeared on Torrent sites. Crytek and EA are deeply disappointed by the news. We encourage fans to support the game and the development team by waiting and purchasing the final, polished game on March 22.

It is also pointed out that the game is still in development and that, “Piracy continues to damage the PC packaged goods market and the PC development community.”

No further information is given as to how the leaked occurred or what either company is doing about it.

I’m sure that both EA and Crytek are working behind the scenes to figure out who leaked the game. I doubt it was at a production facility as the game isn’t ready for disc printing yet, so it’s going to be an employee or visitor at Crytek or EA, or someone given a build for preview purposes.

Whoever it is, they better hope their tracks are covered as I’m sure both companies will pursue them for damages relating to potential lost sales. If it’s someone internal at one of the companies then their job is certainly gone and I doubt another position within the games industry would be forthcoming.

I think the only positive Crytek can take from this is that the leak happened this early. If it had occurred a week before launch then I believe it would have affected sales much more. We still have over a month to release which means the game is not finished yet so anyone downloading this copy is getting an incomplete version.How many times have we seen a PC game released only to have a patch available day one to fix performance and graphical glitches? Crysis 2 will be no different and anyone playing this illegal copy won’t be getting the true experience.

The time left before launch gives Crytek breathing space to figure out how to block this leaked copy being used in legitimate multiplayer games. Being limited to single-player gaming may push a few pirates to buy the game anyway.

Speak Your Mind

Dave Jackson

It could easily be someone playing with compromised security. A torrenting or ftp trojan, for example, that gradually trickled the build out whilst nobody noticed. It happened at valve (or so they claimed) with Half Life 2.

FreeYourMind

Doesn’t matter. Its an EA game. People won’t even want to pirate it because EA published products are such total crap.

-1 for the PC gaming community. And we wonder why the PC gets overlooked so often. It’s our own damn fault.

Chay

Puhleeeze… they leaked it intentionally. Everyone knows hype is wanning for this and they want to give everyone a taste.

Master Key? Changed in an instant.
Limited to Single player? Sure.

But buggy in the higher levels? Say what? Any programmer worth their salt codes in an object-orientated fashion. If it doesn’t work on the higher levels, it certainly won’t work on the lower levels.

Leaked. Completely.

CRaZZZyGaMeRRR

Please read, and forget about the ethics of game making / buying / pirating.
Nothing will stop people from getting games for free when possible, and it’s not a bad thing.

You cant stop it, you cant even slow it down. As long as the air is free, people will breathe it. DRM is a joke, just to make extra money for its developers. There hasnt been a single game title that was not cracked and pirated. Your efforts are in vain. Just accept it.

The original Farcry then Crysis/Warhead on Crytek engines 1 and 2 were great, but this new one is garbage, I’m sorry, but it really is. Power kick cars? Pickup only certain objects and only one way of throwing them (with a crappy animation, even @120fps). No Maximum Strength suit function? In original you could pick up anything, even chunks of trees and animals, and all the small things in houses, etc, and throw them in 3 different ways + with Max Strength. PhysX is awesome.

But Crysis 2 is, in fact, an over-hyped, downgraded title. It’s just a beta, but the final release is NOT going to be fundamentally different. The game loads 10x faster, it must have been scraped of features.
Shiny graphics, but that’s about it.
Definitely NOT worth the $60, out of principle, not the money.

If the developer/publisher were not afraid, a Demo would have been out.
A Demo of a mediocre game would definitely affect the sales negatively.

The fundamental difference between stealing something at a store and downloading a game lies in the right to Try It Before You Buy It.
Stores always take things back, but games cannot be returned, and are way overpriced. Buying a game has become a gamble. Why should we gamble with our money?

I was going to buy it, but not any more, thank god I wasnt cheated, and thank god for the leak. Long Live the Internet!